


Lord Knows

by BookofOdym



Category: Blue Beetle (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Justice League International (Comics)
Genre: Anal Sex, BAMF Ted Kord, But also, Cock Warming, Community: dckinkmeme, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Figging, Kidnapping, M/M, Mind Break, Mind Manipulation, Oral Sex, Watersports, stress positions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:47:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26308801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofOdym/pseuds/BookofOdym
Summary: Instead of killing Ted when he comes across his evil plan, Max decides he has a much better role for him, and sets about breaking his mind to mold him into the perfect sex pet, telling him it's exactly what he deserves all the way.
Relationships: Ted Kord/Maxwell Lord
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh no you probably can't even tell that I'm a not evil Max fan from this. Personally, I prefer the ship to be wholesome in the Super Buddies era but I think I'm in the minority for that.  
> Also I'm trying to make this a whump fic where Ted is genuinely competent all the way through, but dealing with someone equally as intelligent... so I guess "Maxwell Lord is smarter than Bruce Wayne" should be a tag as well.  
> Anyway here is an almost wholesome panel before Ted gets wrecked:  
> https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/628858237088825345/751535946066821250/unknown-314.png

“Join me or die time, is that it?” 

“That’s it exactly,” Max replied, pointing a gun at Ted’s head. In most universes, Ted would tell him to Rot in Hell, Max would shoot him, and then comment on what a waste it was. This was not one of those universes. 

“Rot in Hell, Ma-” Ted started, only to cut himself off with a scream when Max hit him in the side with a cattle prod that he had been keeping behind his back. Ted’s cry lasted for just a moment as electricity coursed through his body, then he slumped to the floor, unconscious again. 

“Change of plans,” Max said lightly, “Sasha, please take Mister Kord to my quarters, I have more important matters to attend to right now, but I’ll be joining him shortly.” 

* * *

Ted groaned as the world came back into focus, for whatever reason, it seemed like Max was just having fun knocking him out and moving him around like he pleased. Not, Ted supposed, that he should be complaining, since the alternative was him being dead right now. Plus... if Max had held back on the act of killing him, was there a chance of him being brainwashed? Or a way to convince him to turn away from his current plan? 

Those were thoughts for later, though, when he’d gotten out of his current position and retreated a little. Babs wouldn’t pick up for him, but maybe... J’onn had always had a bit of a soft spot for his idiots... would the people who’d gone to deal with the fighting between Rann and Thanagar be back yet? He’d have to hope. Right now, he should talk stock of where they were holding him. 

He was tied to a bed, which by itself wasn’t anything strange, the fact that the bed was comfortable... was... a little, since Max hadn’t even been willing to pay for nice beds for the Justice League. Ted pulled on the cuffs, they were much smaller than the ones he had on before, the chain connecting them to the bed was fine, but... he tugged his arms forward fast, not delicate enough to snap from any force exerted by a human acting alone. 

It was then, mostly because he tried to vocally command the Bug, that he realized that he wasn’t wearing his costume. That was not a good sign. However, whoever had taken it had left his spare lockpicks by his foot, and if Ted was as flexible as he thought he was, he would be able to... 

YES! 

“What are you doing?” Max’s voice came from the doorway, he sounded more amused than anything else, which Beetle didn’t particularly like. Ted’s Max would have shouted: ‘What the hell is going on in here?!’ loud enough that the neighbors complained, and charged across the room to wrestle the offending object out of his hands, or feet, in this case. 

The thing was... Ted didn’t even know if that person had ever really existed, and that hurt worse than anything right now, knowing that years of friendship had just been part of a cover story to get close to the superhuman community. 

Instead of acting like he should have, Max calmly stepped across the room, removing the pick from the lock with one deft movement. “Where’d you get this?” He asked, still unnervingly calm. 

“Sub-dermal,” Ted replied, lying as smoothly as he possibly could, he didn’t know what Max would do if he thought he had a traitor in his organization, “keep some under my skin, not doing that would be a rookie mistake.” 

The older man was watching him with a little too much interest, and Ted was starting to worry that he was about to be mentally compelled to tell the truth when Max reached out and rubbed his wrist. “Where do you keep them?” He asked, fingers slowly moving down Ted’s arm. “With your flexibility, it could be anywhere, but I’m willing to spend the evening searching.” 

“Don’t touch me!” Beetle snapped, trying to flinch back, although he only managed to dodge back a few inches with the chain there. 

“That’s not what you said last week,” Max pouted, he was pretending to be hurt. That was a low blow, bringing up the last time Ted had slept with him. It had been a nice night, they’d been joking around like friends. Ted had made a comment about Max’s used car salesman act, not knowing how much of an act it was, Max had elbowed him, and then in the middle of laughing, they had kissed. 

“Last week, I didn’t know you were planning on murdering all my friends!” He snapped. “Jesus Max, does Booster count as a meta under your deranged definition? He doesn’t even have any powers!” 

That just opened it up to further questions. Did Ralph count as a meta, who only had his abilities because he drank some fruit juice. Did Ray? Who had just built himself a belt so he could shrink? Did Hal, John, and Guy... who were humans, and had just been given rings by aliens? Did Carter? Under some worldviews, he could be considered a normal person, only one who could remember his past lives, unlike everyone else. It was insane! 

Even Tora and Bea, how many years had Max worked with them, planning to murder them all along? 

He wasn’t expecting Max to clamp his hand around his throat. “Of course, I forgot how much you loved metas. How many?” 

“How many what?” 

“How many did you let fuck you?” Max growled, he was already pushing apart Ted’s legs, settling in between them. 

“You’re insane,” Ted struggled even harder. He didn’t have access to his arms, but Max would be forced off of him if he could manage one good front kick. Maybe he’d get a nice head injury on the way down too. 

There was just one problem. “Stop moving,” his former friend snapped, a trail of blood coming down from his nose, and Ted stopped struggling immediately. He couldn’t do anything to fight the command. 

“Now Ted,” Max said, trying to bring himself back to full composure, “I’m convinced you just need to be trained to be good. I know you recognize the superiority of us ordinary folk, you just need to be reminded of that fact. Luckily, I have just the thing.” 

Max was smart enough not to kiss him as he pushed down his uniform pants. Ted closed his eyes. He didn’t want to watch this part, he just wanted to- 

He could feel Max’s cock pressing up against his entrance, stretching out his walls as he started to push inside, and he couldn’t hold back the tears that formed at the corners of his eyes at the sudden pain. 

“This is what you deserve,” Max whispered in his ear. “This is exactly what you deserve.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains watersports, so warning for that first off.

Max didn’t let him wear clothes. Max said that everyone needed to see what a slut he was for meta cock, that Ted was really only being punished so that he’d see how wrong that it was. Max conveniently forgot that he was a meta himself, and when it was pointed out to him, he passed on a command that every member of Checkmate was allowed to touch Ted if they walked past him in the hallway. 

Max told him that was what he deserved. 

“You could at least have lent me your shirt,” Ted grumbled when they arrived at Max’s office, his annoyance at having someone pinch his love handles in a public place momentarily distracting him from the fact that the man in front of him was one of the most dangerous people on the planet, “I’m sure that fits in with your Beetle belongs to me, he just needs to be reminded’ thing you’ve got going on. 

“Oh, is that what you think’s going on here?” 

“Is that not what’s going on here?” 

Max was quiet for a moment, so Ted allowed himself to feel smug. “Partially,” He said after a moment, “but I wasn’t lying when I told you this was a punishment, you need to earn your way back into my bed, Ted.” 

“Then what was last night?” 

“Please tell me you can at least recognize the difference between being punished and making love.”

‘Yeah,’ Ted fought to keep from saying, ‘making love is what you do when you genuinely care about someone, which I don’t think you’re capable of.’ 

Instead, he said: “You want me to get out of your hair? I know you must be busy, I never saw Uncle Jarv while he was on his supervillain kick.” 

Max snorted. “Please refrain from comparing me to your weird Uncle with the giant robots, he’s exactly what I’m trying to stop here,” so he really didn’t see it, that he was just as bad as the supervillains, worse even since Major Disaster was flying miles above him, morally speaking. “Also, I’m not letting you out of my sight, you have a habit of draining my bank account even when you aren’t pissy.” 

There went Ted’s plan to start Club Checkmate on an island in the South Pacific, which... might not be that bad of an idea, Booster would take notice for sure, so would most of the Justice League. 

“I know something much better you could be doing with your time, and something much better you could be doing with your mouth than insulting me.” 

An intelligent man would probably not have allowed Ted’s mouth anywhere near his cock, but then again, he did have mind control powers, and when he had Ted kneeling in between his thighs, all it took was a “don’t bite” and Ted couldn’t do anything against him. 

He was forced to open up the fly of Max’s pants, baring his cock to the open air, mostly because he couldn’t be certain that Max wouldn’t decide that keeping him alive wasn’t worth it if he refused. Instead, he mouthed along the length as his former friend started working on his first piece of paperwork for the day. Probably an order to bomb Coast City again. 

“You haven’t earned the right to have me cum in your mouth,” Max informed him, without even looking down. 

So, what the fuck was Ted supposed to be doing? 

“Put my cock in your mouth and don’t do anything until I tell you,” 

Somewhat confused, Beetle lowered his mouth on Max’s cock, and just... stayed in place, not even sucking on it. 

“Good boy,” Max murmured, “you’re doing so well.” 

Ted cursed his body for reacting to that, a shiver of pleasure went up his spine in response to the praise. He didn’t even want to be doing this, it was just... the pavlovian response that Max had spent years feeding into. 

Beetle knelt there for hours, feeling the heavy weight of Max’s cock just resting there on his tongue, if he even shifted for a moment, he would be chastised, if he accidentally sucked, trying to get some moisture back into his mouth, Max would be angry, it seemed that the only thing that made him happy was, well... the merchandise being silent. And still. 

It was only when the woman from before, who had flanked Max when Ted first broke in, showed up, that anything changed. She could see Ted, that much was evident from the choked noise she made in her throat when her eyes flicked past the desk. 

“Ah, hello Sasha,” Max didn’t acknowledge her cry of alarm, “did your mission go well?” 

“I assumed you would make him your Knight,” she said, some confusion in her voice. 

“Hm,” Max said, running his hand through Ted’s auburn curls, pulling his head up so that he could look into the younger man’s eyes, “I still might, Mister Kord needs to earn that honor. One of his finest qualities is his loyalty, but I have to break him of his old loyalties first.” 

“That makes... sense,” Sasha said, sounding like it made no sense to her whatsoever, and it didn’t, so she wasn’t wrong, Ted was guessing right now that she was the one who had left his picks there for him to find. “Are you going to be attending the meeting with the other King and Queen?” 

“Ah, yeah, I just need to take a leak first,” Max informed her, his voice still annoyingly cheerful. He then proceeded to keep his cock down Ted’s throat, not moving at all. 

Ted gave a cry of surprise at the rush of piss that filled up his mouth and forced its way down his throat, but the sound was somewhat muffled by the thick cock his lips were stretched around. He couldn’t do anything but choke it down, he didn’t want it to go down the wrong way and end up drowning in piss. Like a good boy, and hating himself the entire time, Ted swallowed down every drop. 

“Ah,” Max breathed, sounding proud, Ted hated that he sounded so proud, given that Ted wanted to curl up and have a good cry at that moment, “you did so well, I was right, professional piss drinker is the perfect role for you right now.” 

The younger man wasn’t able to hold back a sniffle, and Max patted him gently on the cheek. 

“Earn my trust, Ted, that’s all you have to do.”


	3. Chapter 3

“I knew you were going to end up like this,” a guard who was passing by informed Ted, he had a broken nose, and his arm was in a sling, which the superhero allowed himself to feel proud about, despite his discomfort, “from the very moment you escaped, I knew that you were going to end up here, I said so, didn’t I Ryan?” 

Ryan, who looked like he had been kneed in the face five or six times (probably because he had), nodded, and landed a swift kick to Ted’s shin with a steel-toed boot. Ted gave a gasp of pain. “You deserve it after how you humiliated us.” 

They had, Ted thought, humiliated themselves with their atrocious attempt at guarding his room, and he didn’t doubt that the moment their role in Ted’s punishment was done, that Max would be disposing of them. 

It had happened the night before after Max had left because he didn’t really seem to want to sleep in the same bed as Ted. Which was understandable, being vulnerable around someone who would absolutely take the opportunity to knock you out and escape. But the fact that he was gone meant that Ted had a few hours without someone watching him like a hawk. 

He’d overheard the guards complaining about having to guard a second-string hero, which was good, that meant that they were underestimating him, which meant, when he bit down on his own arm hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to be considered an immediate suicide risk, they didn’t call for backup. 

Instead, they opened up the door to his room and stepped inside. The fight itself lasted about three seconds, stripping down one of the unconscious bodies and dressing himself in the man’s uniform had been the time-consuming part, but by the time he emerged into the hallway, the alarm still hadn’t been rung. 

He kept his head down as he walked through the compound. One of the problems that Max had given himself by letting Ted out of confinement was that he’d allowed him to get a sense of where things were, where he should be going, and which parts of the building he really, really wanted to avoid. 

Was the Bug still active? They’d probably destroyed it when he’d first been captured, and he couldn’t really waste time looking for it. He needed to get into Checkmate’s hangar and steal one of their own planes. 

The only problem had been the fact that there was a code on the door, and inputting the wrong code into the pad three times had set the alarm off for real. He’d soon found himself surrounded by more competent guards, ones who had guns this time, and got marched to Max’s office like it was the JLI days. 

“Keeping you alive is proving to be a hassle, Ted,” Max said, pulling his gun out of its holster and resting it on his desk. The threat of that action was implicit; if Ted made one wrong move, he was dead for real. “I have a soft spot for you, I’ll admit that, but you don’t really deserve it, not with the way you’ve been acting.” 

Ted swallowed, “Just let me go, Max, you can still come back from this. I won’t tell anyone, just drop your plan, and we can go back to the way that things were.” 

He had been fairly certain that Max was about to just pick up the gun and shoot him right then and there, but instead, he left the gun where it was, stepped around the desk, and kissed Ted. “You’re right. Not about me quitting, but we can just go back to the way things were. If you just accept that I’m right, that is.” 

Of course, even with the magnanimity of that decision, Max had still been adamant that Ted had to be punished, and this punishment wasn’t going to be as lenient as any of his previous ones. He marched Ted into the hallway, his newly acquired clothes discarded in the office already, and made the Blue Beetle squat in place, keeping himself upright only on the balls of his feet. 

“You will stay like that until I tell you that you’re allowed to break position,” he informed Ted, the beginnings of a smirk on his face. 

That wouldn’t have been a problem by itself; part of being a hero without powers (and, Ted supposed, with powers, Captain Atom had always been pretty tough) was needing to train yourself to withstand the pain of common torture methods. That was what Max was doing right now, he was sure, they’d moved from degradation to straight-up torture. 

Ted had wobbled a bit when the guard kicked him, but he had a lot of experience remaining well balanced, and his posture even survived standing on one leg to shake the pain out. 

“Clear off!” Max’s voice came, and both the guards ran off in what Ted assumed must have been terror. Max used to be fairly lax about running organizations, sure he would yell if you did something totally ridiculous (which the League tended to do, oh... about once every three hours), but he seemed to run his new organization with an iron fist. 

When the man’s cold gaze turned on him, Ted shivered. 

“I thought you’d be able to manage it,” he said mildly, “lets up the challenge a bit.” 

And suddenly Max was behind him. Ted really, really wasn’t comfortable with this new turn of events. Especially when something hard, but somehow fragrant, pressed up against his asshole. Not wanting to show any weakness, he barked a laugh. “All those years pressing buttons on the bug really did me good, right, Max?” 

Unexpectedly, the man’s face was next to his ear, nuzzling into his hair. “I never said it didn’t,” with that, he slipped the hard object inside Ted, “you were always gorgeous, God, I wanted to have you like this for so long.” 

A soft kiss was pressed against the shell of his ear, and then whatever was in his ass started burning.

“Max-” He hissed urgently, “Max I don’t like this, take it out, I don’t-” 

“It’s just ginger, Theodore, don’t be a baby,” the older man murmured, pressing another kiss into his hairline, “you can take this, can’t you? For me?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I personally hate the batfamily and I imagine most of the people in their universe find them kind of obnoxious.  
> DC: That's not allowed.
> 
> But yeah I'm of the opinion that Bruce Wayne got Ted killed.

Keeping Max happy was somewhat tricky, mainly, Ted thought, because Max would take almost any opportunity to punish him. Whether it was because he was a super sadist, or if he was getting revenge for all those years Ted had spent in his employ (not, Ted would argue, that he had been causing any problems on the Super Buddies, if Max was holding a grudge for something, it would have been something that happened long long ago), he wasn’t sure. But Ted was doing his best to keep his head down, keep Max’s cock in his mouth, and do absolutely nothing to rile him up. 

“Booster’s out of the hospital,” Max informed him one morning, ruffling Ted’s hair as he got his breakfast blowjob. “Quite the relief, I think you’ll agree.” 

Given that Max had been the one who had blown Booster up in the first place, Ted didn’t think he had the right to say anything like that, but he gave a grunt of agreement anyway. No sense in getting out of line. Plus, the hand stroked his head softly when he behaved, which he was finding he enjoyed. It was the one good thing about this situation. 

“You’ve been behaving well these last few days,” Max murmured, “no escape attempts, well... other than that one time...” 

It had happened the day after his last escape attempt. Someone had left a cartload of explosive putty just lying there in the corridor. No supervision. It had been a Super Buddies level error. Like the kind of shit Ralph would have done. It had been easy for Ted to just pick up one of the blocks and run back to his room with that. 

He’d blown the bars out of his window and had been midway through hauling himself out (admittedly with some difficulty, Ted was naturally round and needed to exercise a lot to keep himself trim, being trapped in one place where his only role was to be a cockwarmer did not help), when Max had come in. 

“Really, Beetle?” He had murmured, rubbing his thumbs over the globes of the other man’s ass, Ted had only vaguely been able to hear him, it was just enough to let him know that the other man was there. It was still a shock when he’d felt the tongue against his hole, rubbing against him... pushing into him. He’d tried to squirm forward, despite the sheer drop, but he was stuck fast. 

Max had played with him for hours, too long, really, for someone who was supposed to be so busy. Apparently, in the list of things he wanted to do that night, rimming Beetle’s ass had come above trying to take over the world. Not, Ted thought, that that would hold its allure for long. For God’s sake, he wasn’t even attractive, he knew that eventually, Max would decide he’d rather go after some pretty supermodel... anyone who didn’t look like Ted, really, and then he’d get his brains blown out. 

It was one of life’s inevitabilities. 

“So, I’m thinking I should take you out in public,” Max informed him, casually, like it was a sentence that made any sense at all. 

Ted was so shocked that he pulled off of the cock in his mouth to shout: “WHAT?!” 

“Hm, Booster’s out of the hospital, so he’s gonna start sniffing around, and if he starts sniffing around, Gardner is gonna start sniffing around too,” he brushed a thumb over Ted’s cheek, looking oddly fond for a moment “it’s better to let you get seen out in public, so no one declares you a missing person.” 

Ted shouldn’t argue. It was an opportunity to escape, to... tell someone what he was going through. Wait until Max was deep in conversation with someone, and slip over to another partygoer. But that was... obviously what he was going to do, Max would know that, and there had to be some kinda catch. 

“Plus, I need a date to Wayne’s party,” the older man continued, and Ted swore that he could see a smirk on his face as he brought his coffee mug to his lips. 

“Max! Max, no!” Ted was offended on two fronts, the first of which was... it was Bruce Wayne’s fucking fault he was here in the first place, like... yes, it was Max who held a gun to his head, and Max who had kidnapped him, and Max who was indulging in his apparently years-long desire to be a very very bad boss who would have HR sent after him with assault rifles in real life... but it was Batman’s inability to trust anyone that had led to that situation, that had given Max the ability to indulge his inner Lex Luthor in the first place. 

Added to that fact was the fact that the only member of that family Ted liked or trusted was Barbara, who might not even be there. Plus, she hadn’t even been taking his calls when he started his infiltration of the base. The only way he was going to get any help at all was if Babs’ silver fox dad showed up, because he sure as fuck couldn’t trust any of the freaking Batboys to help him out.

Max knew that, because he had been there in the Super Buddies headquarters in the weird moments when Guy was over and being relatively tolerable, and they were all bitching about how the Bats thought they were the centre of the universe.

The second front, the one that he was safe to voice in this situation, was: “Max, if you’re taking me as a date anywhere, at least take me somewhere fun: Hub City Slashers vs. Winnipeg Jets. Tonight. Don’t make me go to a rich person partyyyy~” 

“Now cut that out! I didn’t even tell you that you could stop!” The older man snapped, menace in his voice for the first time that day, and repentant, Ted took the man’s cock back into his mouth. It was a moment before the hand returned to his hair. “Maybe, if you behave, we can catch the Football on TV when we get back.” 

Hockey, but Ted wasn’t about to complain. He was getting  Pavloved like a dog, and he knew it, but he was starting to break down in the face of affection. Even knowing the man was an evil, manipulative bastard, the option of not having anything done to him for one night, just curling up together on the couch, was tempting.

* * *

The truth was that he wanted to go see the game for one reason and one reason only. It would be televised. It would be on TV, and one annoying faceless vigilante from Hub City would be bound to see it. The Question was bound to be concerned about his sudden disappearance, and he would start investigating. Given one small clue, he would start digging, and then like a dog with a bone, he would eventually uncover the whole plot. 

But the question (hah) was... did Max know that Ted had any sort of relationship with The Question? It wasn’t like he’d been in the habit of bringing his creepiest of allies to the JLI headquarters, other than that one time the dude had broken in, which had not been his fault. A fight had broken out, but Max hadn’t been there at the time. Of course, that didn’t mean it was impossible that he’d heard about it. 

“Penny for your thoughts,” Max said, dropping a bag into Ted’s lap. 

“Will you really give me a penny every time I tell you the fantasies I have about PG?” Beetle asked, digging through the bag. 

“No. I won’t be doing that. Please never tell me anything further.” Max settled on the arm of the chair, watching him pull out a brightly colored suit (of which none of the pieces went with any of the other pieces), and a newsboy cap. “If it was up to me, I’d put you in something nicer, but having any semblance of fashion sense would probably be out of character enough for you that people would get concerned.” 

Ouch. Max could be mean. 

He’d been... acting oddly like his old self today, and Ted guessed it was for practice; he didn’t want to slip up in front of the press. This probably meant that Ted’s role today was pretending to be a close friend. Ted Kord and Maxwell Lord were not in a romantic relationship, and being seen to be in one would bring too much attention to them. 

Or at least that was what Ted had thought before Max wrapped his arm around his waist the moment they stepped out of the car, pulling him close. 

“What are you doing?” He hissed; he could already see people looking at them. 

“Making sure you don’t make a run for it,” Max growled back at him. “Hi, Dinah!” He called towards Black Canary, who must have been there with her husband. Ted looked around; he had to be there somewhere. There! He was starting an argument with one of the richest men in the world, as expected. Hal was holding him back, which was weird because... couldn’t you only have one plus one. 

Hold on. Hal. Hal had been one of the only people who had believed him about any of this. He’d just been too busy to help, and Hal’s main villain was a former friend who had done almost exactly what Max was doing right now. If he could get alone with him, then maybe... 

“Hey, you two,” Dinah smiled at them. “You found Ted, Max? Booster was freaking out. Saying he’d gone missing or something.” 

Max squeezed him even tighter. “Booster has a habit of freaking out about nothing. Ted went off on a little investigation, found nothing, and decided to spend a few more days in Paris to make himself feel better. Right, Ted?” 

Beetle swallowed. “Right. Hey, I should go talk to your husband for a bit, you know how much he... likes talking to me?” 

Dinah made a face, somewhere between pity and disbelief, because Ted annoyed Ollie immeasurably. Somehow, the fact that he also annoyed Carter immeasurably didn’t translate to being friends with Hawkman’s greatest enemy. “I suppose if you want to give Gold something to worry about for real...” she managed, “and maybe a few holes could improve that suit. Somehow. It’s impossible to make it any worse.” 

As he pulled away, Max’s hand shot out and grabbed his own, although he seemed to think better of it, because he let go almost instantly. “Come back as soon as you’re done, Ted, you know how you get lost in crowds.” 

Ted grumbled something too himself as he walked away, although it didn’t stop him from hearing the next part of their conversation. 

“So you two are...” Dinah trailed off, clearly trying to think of how best to define their relationship, “...dating?” She eventually decided on. 

“You could call it that,” Max replied, smile obvious in his voice. “It’s amazing how much less annoying Kord is when his mouth is occupied.”


	5. Chapter 5

Getting to Hal and Ollie without being accosted was... difficult, to say the least, Ted had never regretted his role as a successful CEO before, mostly because it got him more of his favorite thing, money, at least when he remembered to give himself a salary. But right now, it was causing him more harm than good. While Ted had known Carol Ferris for years, now was not the time to be discussing a collaboration on plane production. 

Maybe he could mention it to her, but she was a civilian, so: “My jackass former boss who used to be in charge of the—excuse the expression—Super Buddies, is secretly evil, and also kidnapped me,” was more likely to freak her out than help in any meaningful way. 

So instead, he smiled. “I promise that when I’m back at my desk, we can talk about it. It’s just been... a rough couple of days.” 

In response, she patted him on the arm and left to go talk to someone else. Simon Stagg, Ted thought, and he genuinely wanted to avoid that interaction if he could. 

But eventually, he managed to get over to the two men, although Max had probably been watching him the whole time, maybe all the inane conversations would have bored him enough to stop looking, but Ted doubted it. 

When he got over to Ollie and Hal, they were arguing about something, which wasn’t a surprise, given that they were always arguing about something, those two loved nothing more than a good fight, and on any other day Ted would have brought over a chair so that he could watch it turn into a physical fight, which then proceeded to ruin Bats’ party. It would, no doubt, be hilarious. 

He was going to have to interrupt that, though. 

“No, Hal!” Oliver was saying, loudly, “All of them are sleazebags! We can’t give any of them the benefit of the doubt!” 

“Hi fellas,” Ted interrupted; from the dialogue, you’d think that this was a pretty serious conversation, but knowing Oliver, he could just have been mad that someone took the last of the hors d ‘oeuvres. “Whatcha doin’?” 

“Oliver’s discovered a new hideous moral cancer.” 

That sounded like an in-joke more than anything, but Ted got the point. “Ah, yeah, I have too, to be honest.” 

“Yeah, what?” Oliver glared at him. Once Arrow made up his mind about you, you had a hard time changing it. 

“Max,” he said, simply, fully intending on going on to tell them everything, except... both of them started laughing instantaneously. It was the kind of statement that sounded like a joke, the greedy, outwardly perverted, often angry CEO being some kind of moral cancer, but still. It wasn’t a good response if Ted wanted people to believe him. “No, I mean...” 

It was so easy to say, ‘it’s a Sinestro kind of thing’, that was all he had to say, but it was like there was a mental block on his mind. How hard would it have been for Max to put the whammy on him without him knowing about it? Making it so that he outright couldn’t tell anyone about what happened. 

He couldn’t leave without making it clear to them that something was wrong, he knew that, but... he didn’t know what to do... Tears pricked at the corners of Ted’s eyes. 

That was the moment that he realized he needed to shock them, show them something that they would never have expected from him; the scar on his arm was starting to heal, but it was still pretty gruesome, and when he shoved up his sleeve, both men clearly caught a glimpse of it. 

“What the fuck?” Oliver murmured. 

“Self-inflicted,” Hal said softly; he had always been massively smarter than he let on; a lot of heroes were because people expecting you to be a prep god was dangerous and liable to get you killed. If Ted had to guess, he had gleaned that from the angle and depth of the bite mark. “You’ve been staying with Maxwell Lord recently, and-” 

Yes. Ted thought. YES. He could see the wheels moving in Green Lantern’s beautiful Air Force trained brain. He’d been staying with Max recently (well, “staying with”, he didn’t think that Hal would pick up on the kidnapping thing until after he went home and thought some more), and had attempted to rip out his own artery with his teeth. Therefore, his time with Max must have been bad- 

“Theodore,” Ah, the man in question, he’d snuck up behind them while Ted had been distracted. Surprisingly, Arrow stepped into his path, blocking his view of Ted. “Oliver, what are you doing?” 

“Let’s just take a moment to figure things out,” Arrow growled, although he didn’t have any weapons on him, so Ted wasn’t sure how much of a threat he would be. Max had definitely been hiding a lot of his combative skills in the last several years. 

“Figure what out?” Max sounded annoyed, and his gaze flicked down Ted’s body until it settled on his arm. It remained there for a few moments before he finally spoke. “Theodore has been staying with me since he went through what sounded like a pretty severe mental breakdown, paranoia, hallucinations, it all came to a head when he struck a nurse-” 

The manipulative bastard! Ted could have killed him. 

“It was either stay with me or be institutionalized, I’m afraid, especially after the self-harming, and Kord Industries couldn’t survive all the negative press that would bring. Has Ted been telling you I’m responsible? He even promised to take his meds today.” 

“Okay, that’s what you say, but we can still take a moment to figure things out,” But Oliver sounded more unsure, Ted could feel the sanctuary of a few seconds ago rapidly slipping away. “Let’s hear Beetle’s side of the story.” 

* * *

In their car, Ted felt like crying. He was sat right next to the window, looking out of it; he didn’t want to look at Max, although he knew that the man was staring at him. 

“Well,” Max said finally, clapping his hands together, “at least we have a cover story now, and I wouldn’t have thought of it if you hadn’t taken the initiative. Well done, Beetle.” 

There was no way that anyone was going to believe Ted now, he’d wasted his one shot at freedom. 

* * *

Back in Coast City, Hal Jordan sat deep in thought, the events of tonight had been strange, and he still wasn’t sure who to believe. Lord had had a pretty believable story; it wouldn’t be the first time a superhero had snapped, case in point... Hal himself, and there had also been the period of time where Ray could have PTSD induced flashbacks to his time in the jungle and had almost stabbed more than one person during them. 

Max’s story was believable, Ted had a breakdown, and they had called his close friend and benefactor to take care of him, but the more Hal thought about it..., the more holes he found himself poking in it. 

If Ted Kord had had a medical emergency, why would Maxwell Lord be the only person made aware of the situation? Booster Gold regularly acted like he was 5 years old, but he was Kord’s best friend, and Hal imagined he would also be his emergency contact. If it wasn’t him, that still left... a lot of other people he’d have had as more likely than Lord. 

J’onn. 

Captain Atom. 

Scott and Barda. 

Even if Booster hadn’t been Ted’s emergency contact... it was weird that Lord hadn’t allowed Ted to phone him and tell him what happened. Booster had spent the last day or so in a constant state of panic, bouncing around the League and begging to know if they’d heard from Ted. Even if he hadn’t trusted Ted to phone people himself, what with his delicate mental state and all, Lord should have informed the League what was going on. 

It was fishy, but Hal couldn’t be certain, because he’d never been a member of the JLI. But he knew someone who did. 

“Ring? Contact Guy Gardner?” 

_Contacting Green Lantern 2814.3_

“Jordo?” Guy grunted, then broke off into a loud yawn, “Why the fuck are you calling at 2 in the morning?” 

“Something weird happened tonight.” 

“Weird as in... Black Hand stalking you again, or weird as in... just Sonar’s general existence.” Guy didn’t sound particularly concerned either way. 

“Neither of those. Oliver invited me to a party. Do you remember Max Lord?” 

“Sleazebag CEO? Terrible hair? Used car salesman act? Mostly spotted screaming at Blue and Gold?”

“If Ted Kord told you something was up with him, maybe he was hurting him, and then Max started claiming that Ted was suffering from hallucinations, which one would you believe?” 

There was a pause. 

“Call Johnny,” Guy growled, “I’m coming over.”


	6. Chapter 6

Max hummed against Ted’s bare neck, and Beetle jumped slightly; he couldn’t believe that he had zoned out so much, not when the older man was just parading information about his plans around in front of him like this. Max definitely had a thing about cockwarming; he liked having Ted in his lap while he worked on paperwork, right there to be played with whenever he got bored. The situation was getting more and more normal, to the point that he was even starting to relax in Max’s presence again. 

He couldn’t allow that to happen. 

Oblivious to his thoughts, or possibly totally aware of them and just doing it to be a dick, Max pressed a kiss right beneath Ted’s earlobe. “You were falling asleep,” he said, “that isn’t any fun.” 

“I’m missing the part where that’s my problem.” 

A dark chuckle sounded right next to his ear, with breath brushing against the lobe. “Well then, carry on, I can make my own fun. I would just think you’d want to be awake for it. Know what I did.” 

Maybe that thought was worse than anything else, the thought of just not knowing. 

* * *

Guy showed up at Hal’s apartment only ten minutes after their phone conversation ended, with Captain Atom, Booster Gold, and a young redhead that Hal didn’t recognize in tow. It was a little late for them since John had arrived almost instantaneously. 

“Had to make a detour,” Guy said, “tried my ring, and it said Max isn’t anywhere on the planet.” 

“That’s obviously wrong,” Hal said, although he wasn’t sure what could have caused that either. 

“So, he’s just in a building that’s painted yellow?” 

Hal ground his teeth together. He couldn’t believe that Booster Gold was making jokes at a time like this. He already didn’t have a high opinion of the man, but this... 

John stepped in smoothly before Hal could start a fight. 

“Vibrational Interference?” He suggested. “It would imply that Lord doesn’t want to be found, but we were going into this assuming that already.” 

Hal’s eyes flicked to the kid, who almost seemed to be hiding behind Captain Atom as he surveyed the room; he looked between Hal, John, and Guy, before glancing at the doorway to the kitchen nervously. Whatever was on his mind, he didn’t voice it, but Captain Atom clearly didn’t have any such issues. 

“There’s no reason to get Scott or Rayner involved at this point, they’d just make it harder to get to Beetle, and I want you to understand that I will not put up with anything making it harder to get to Beetle,” he narrowed his eyes at Hal, “so if you can’t work with Booster, you’re out of this investigation right now.” 

Hal held up his hands in surrender. “Who’s the kid?” He wasn’t a member of the JLI. If he was, Hal would have remembered him from all the news coverage of buildings being destroyed back then. Maybe there was a vague sense of recollection, but... 

“Telepath.” Was all Nate said. “Maxima’s unavailable, and you know Max would have something prepared for J’onn. Anything else about him... you don’t need to know, because you’d make it-” 

“Harder to get to Beetle, yeah yeah, I get it.” 

“What about generalized Psychic Blocks?” John asked because he always thought of everything. “You said he’d have a plan for J’onn; what if he has one for every telepath?” 

“We’re assuming that he does,” the redhead said, without bothering to introduce himself. “But we’re also assuming that whatever he’s doing, he won’t be averse to meeting with a founding member of the Justice League. So we’re going to send you in, and then track him until it becomes impossible, which should be right by his hiding spot.” 

“But,” Nate added, “It doesn’t have to be you, and if you screw up in any way... I’m calling in Arthur.” 

Hal ignored him. “Why can’t you just find the one place on the planet you can’t pick up any people?” 

“Injustice Unlimited have Psi-Blockers, the Secret Six have Psi-Blockers, the League of Assassins have Psi-Blockers, and then every government organization on Earth has them, even without taking into account how many places on the planet just don’t have people, it’s a lot of places to check.” 

Captain Atom crossed his arms. “So, make the call already, Jordan.” 

* * *

Max had Ted pinned down against his desk and was thrusting into him slowly when the phone rang. Ted relaxed slightly, looking forward to a few moments of peace after the last several hours of constant stimulation. Unfortunately for him, Max didn’t consider having an important phone conversation to be any reason to pull out of Ted. 

“Ah, Hello, Mister Jordan,” he said, pressing a hand down on Ted’s back so that he could fuck into him harder, and Ted had to fight to keep from moaning. He was sure he didn’t want that to happen. If Hal heard, and worse... assumed it was all a kinky game, he wasn’t sure what he would do. “What can I do for you?” 

Some indecipherable comments came from the other end of the phone, and Max made momentary soft noises that indicated that he understood, all the while he was demolishing Ted’s prostate. 

“Captain Atom is starting a new team, and he wants me to help fund it?” Which Ted thought was suspicious immediately, after that time that Max had started a team, and Nate had gotten seriously injured, then Ted had tried to take him to the hospital, and had gotten into a fight with the doctor who said the man called Captain Atom who was leaking was probably leaking radiation, and then Nate had almost been taken by the EPA... it seemed unlikely that Nate would ever be willing to work with Max again. But if Max found that strange, he wasn’t giving any indication of that. 

“Right now?” He asked, and Ted’s ears pricked up. “Well, no, I’m a little busy right now.” 

Hal continued speaking, and every so often, Max would interject with an “mm-hm.” Ted couldn’t hear much, but he was getting the idea that Hal was saying he needed to meet with Max as soon as possible. Come to think of it, didn’t Hal have problems with Max specifically, too? Unlike Ray and Carter, he was fine with the members of the JLI, but he didn’t like how Max ran it... all of this was a little bit strange. 

“Give me an hour,” Max said finally and hung up before Hal could say another word. 

He was quiet for a long moment, not even fucking into Ted; he was just very still. “Well, obviously, he wants to talk about you.”


End file.
